Ahead of next year's IPO, Uber's 3-year search for a CFO continues as sources say multiple people turned down the job and CEO wants at least a 5-year commitment
Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal :
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second marquee executive search Uber has run publicly, and it is rhyming with the first: during the 2017 CEO search, sources said Sheryl Sandberg, Susan Wojcicki, Tom Staggs, Alan Mulally, and Arianna Huffington had little to no interest in the job. Now the CFO seat — empty since 2015 — has drawn multiple turndowns, with the CEO insisting on at least a five-year commitment.
The timing is what makes this more than a hiring squabble: the company has told people it plans an IPO next year, and a public listing without a permanent finance chief is a governance question every underwriter and investor will ask about.
First-order effects
- Uber heads into IPO preparation with the CFO role unfilled for three years, meaning interim financial leadership must carry audit, disclosure, and roadshow work that banks typically expect a permanent CFO to own.
- Candidates weighing the offer now know the price of admission: a minimum five-year commitment to a company still repairing its reputation after the Kalanick-era turmoil.
Second-order effects
- When marquee names keep declining, the realistic pool shifts to credible-but-lower-profile operators rather than household-name finance chiefs — which is how the search eventually resolved, with Uber hiring Nelson Chai, formerly of Warranty Group and NYSE, in August 2018 (the eventual hire).
- A demanding commitment term functions as a filter against exactly the candidates a pre-IPO board most wants, so Uber pays either in compensation, in title scope, or in settling for a narrower shortlist.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across both the CEO and CFO searches, top-tier executives are systematically pricing Uber's governance risk into their decisions, pushing the company toward internal promotions and shorter-tenure hires — a structure that follows it into public markets.
- Chai's own later departure, reported in 2023 as the most significant executive exit since the IPO (his planned exit), suggests the candidate caution was rational: the five-year-commitment problem outlived the private-company era.
The trend: At companies emerging from founder-era turmoil, elite executive candidates increasingly decline the top finance and operations seats, forcing boards to trade star power for speed and accept higher churn in the C-suite through the IPO window.